


The Book

by JoAsakura



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Other, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-12 15:28:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19231897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoAsakura/pseuds/JoAsakura
Summary: In a little bookstore, if you know where to look, you can find a very certain guidebook to Hell.





	The Book

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PrettyArbitrary](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrettyArbitrary/gifts).



The bookstore is small and dim, set into an alley off a street that never seems to have a name.  The proprietor is frail, so frail he looks like he might simply crumble into dust if you get too close. But no one ever does. The big black cat on the counter watches any newcomers with curious red eyes.

But he smiles just the same when customers come in, leaning on his cane. Because he knows, they’re coming for one thing.

To find the Sons of Sparda.

So, he carefully pulls a book off a shelf. It’s not particularly large or thick. It’s not bound in gold and bleeding gems like some or whispering in ruffled pages like others. It’s plain and brown, leather worn soft and dull.

 _You should know, that in the language of Hell, they call it the Akathama_ _Aśvinauri_ _, the War Gardens of the Twins_ , he’ll say, tapping his cane as he crosses the crowded little shop. In the rafters, a fat black crow preens.

_On a calm day, when the hot winds blowing across the blood-hued rivers of the Pandemonic Plains are just right, you can hear the shriek of steel ringing clear even deep within the towering skyscrapers of Dis. If the Nobodies are quiet in the black Bogs of Acheron, you can hear the laughter._

_Demons whisper the story over fistfuls of glittering orb fragments bartered in the smoky shops in the seaside town of Caina Cocytus. The Twins, the Faces of Sparda, fight joyfully, battling for the day when one claims the other as his greatest weapon and lays claim to every throne in the underworld._

_On that day, the Hell Caina and the Scissors say, on that day blood will rain down, filling the cups of the faithful, and the grasping lords who served Mundus will be torn apart in their courts, opening the gates to every Nobody and Oranguerra begging in the onyx streets._

_But, if you are clever, and strong, you can follow the sounds of battle, they say. Follow them straight to the blasted plain of the Akathama_ _Aśvinauri_

_And many try._  

_Some make the journey out of curiosity.  Some tell stories of glorious demons with wings of fire and lightning. Some (liars, mad as a Nobody) say they only see humans with moon-white hair and soft flesh dancing to the song of their weapons._

_Some go out of desperation. There is no better way to ensure your name and escape the relentless claws of the Greater Lords of Hell than to fall to the Brothers. They die with freedom on their lips, or so the stories say._

_But others, they go full of pride and stupidity. Lordlings and lesser Fallen thinking they can defeat them, that they are the ones who will finally feed on the Brothers and become as Gods to unseat the memory of even Mundus._

_If you find the road to the Akathama_ _Aśvinauri and you follow the sounds of steel and laughter, you will find the heads of the prideful ones. For the Brothers, those Faces of Sparda, they are kind in the ways of the Old Lords of Hell and wish to warn you to avoid that same fate._

He always asks his customers which of the three they are, curious, desperate or stupid. None of them ever admit to the latter. And human and demon alike, all of them still want the Book. The the V stamped into the cover is almost unreadable, and he carefully wraps it in paper then just smiles softly and asks for the price: two gold coins. The same price the eyes of the dead pay, even if it is just a rental fee.

The Book of V always finds its way back to him in the end.


End file.
